Ohara Museum

The Ohara Museum in Kurashiki is Japan's oldest Western art museum, located in Okayama. The private museum was created by Ohara Magosaburo in 1930 to commemorate Kojima Torajiro, a Western-style painter whose talents Ohara respected deeply. The Ohara Museum consists of four buildings, all displaying different types of artworks. The Main Gallery exhibits most of the museum's highlights by various artists like Picasso, Pollock, El Greco, and many others. Although in the early years most of the artworks were by French artists, the gallery now includes works by Italian, American and artists of other nationalities.

Adjacent to the Main Gallery are three buildings: Annex, Craft Art Gallery, and Asiatic Art Gallery. The Annex building features works of Japanese artists including traditional artworks such as oil painting and sculptures. The Craft Art Gallery features ceramics, woodblock prints, stencil dyeing, and other crafts. The Asiatic Art Gallery displays artifacts from other Asian countries such as antiques from China and Egypt.

The Ohara Museum also has a fifth building called the Kojima Museum which is located about five minutes from the Main Gallery. The Kojima Museum was built specifically to commemorate Kojima Torajiro, the museum founder. Much of the works displayed in the Kojima Museum were painted by Kojima himself and many of the paintings displayed in Ohara Museum in general were purchased by Kojima on behalf of Ohara.

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